Heather Huntoon fulfills the role of the elementary school principal in that it seems like it must have been her destiny.

She has a warm smile that would put even the most nervous first grader at ease on the first day of school. She also has the command to earn respect from even the most unruly of fifth graders or even the most demanding parents. After her retirement at the end of this year, she’ll have spent almost three decades working in education and seven of those years as Gilpin County School Elementary Principal.

If you’d asked Huntoon what her dream job growing up was, being a teacher certainly wasn’t her first answer. Huntoon’s first aspirations were to be an electrical engineer and work at General Motors, just like her father did. Building her family had put her career goals on hold. As her daughter, Megan, began school Huntoon began to see the classroom as a new calling.

“I loved watching the teachers build this energy in education,” Huntoon said in a Zoom interview. “I really wanted that nurturing piece in my life. I felt it was important. And I just watched my daughter grow in education. And I wanted to be part of that,” she said.

Huntoon went to school for her Bachelor of Arts in Education and spent the next several years teaching in elementary school classrooms at Clear Creek. Megan continued to serve as a catalyst in Huntoon’s career. When daughter Megan went on to the next great phase in her education to college out of state, Huntoon, who felt that the house was a little too empty and that she needed a new goal, went back to college herself for a Master’s in Education Administration from Denver University.

After getting her second degree, Huntoon applied to Gilpin County in the hopes of working in a small district. “I find passion in small school districts because you wear many hats,” she explained “I wanted to know every student’s name, I wanted that relationship piece. And I felt that this was a good stepping stone for me.”

Part way through the interview it became clear the many hats Huntoon wears as a principal. Huntoon had to excuse herself to go talk to someone at the door. The librarian was out that afternoon, so she was in charge of the library key and is responsible for letting people in.

Of course, balancing so many roles isn’t always easy, as Huntoon well knows. She recalled the first week of her tenure when she accidentally over-scheduled the lunch rooms between the different grades which then messed with the various recess periods. It resulted in a surprisingly chaotic first day. She laughs now, “Who knew that turf wars and food fights, that’s what I had to focus on my first day of school.”

In Huntoon’s eyes, being an administrator is about being able to change your mind or your strategy with little notice. Stubbornness and pride won’t help as a school administrator.

“I always tell my staff, and this is something I always say, I am a risk taker. I will make mistakes. I know that but I’m not afraid to accept the mistakes I make and I’m not afraid to make changes.”

After that disastrous first lunch period, Huntoon asked her staff what she needed to do to fix the schedule and implemented their suggestions. It’s this approach that makes Huntoon a leader. She’s bold but she’s not stubborn in her decisions. When things don’t work not only is she willing to change, she’s willing to ask those around for their critiques.

The way she describes it, school administration is like a complicated performance that she’s directing, a performance where each staff member is their own choreographer. Her job, as she sees it, is to create a cohesive community from all the different tempos and beats that her staff and students bring to the school.

“As an educator, you’re always doing a dance. And we all dance differently….. So [the teachers] all had to find their own style or their own dance. I’ve always said, I don’t want you all to dance the same way. I want us to be all uniquely different in how we teach,” Huntoon explained “That we’re creative and flexible, and learning how to meet the needs of our students.”

Still, the aspiring engineer is very clear in her approach as a principal, which is extremely data-driven in regard to her students’ learning improvements (something I can attest to as the education reporter who has spent hours listening to her direct test results for the Board of Education). The combination of her artistic-like direction and data-focused learning goals have earned the school the Governor’s Distinguished Improvement Award in 2017, the John Irwin Schools of Excellence award in 2018, as well as help Gilpin County School be among those of the districts Accredited with Distinction.

Despite all her incredible accomplishments in distinguishing the school, Huntoon says she takes the most pride in the second family she’s created at Gilpin. She’ll do anything to foster it, whether it’s visiting students like Morgan Wright when he asks for her at nap time or taking on lunch duty with her assistant principal to give the teachers time to reconnect with their colleagues after the Covid-19 pandemic. She invites people to step into it, setting up a student council this year so the students have more input in the community.

“I think if you don’t cultivate your learning community, and get your staff all on the same page, you’ll have fragments, and I think it will really limit the growth of the school,” she said. Part of her reasoning is practical, strong communities minimize staff turnover and minimize confusion over exceptions for staff, but they also help create a common language that Huntoon treasures.

However, it is a lot of work. Huntoon cites the pandemic as part of her reason for retiring, saying it reminded her of other chapters in her life. Huntoon says she hopes to use her well-earned retirement to reconnect with her mother back home in Michigan and spend time with her mother while she still can. She’s also excited to get back to getting active in the great outdoors that drew her and her husband to Colorado to begin with. Beyond that, she’s not exactly sure what her next chapter will bring.